We want the film to help increase the audience’s understanding of dementia and its impact, so that those experiencing it now and in the future can feel better understood and heard on a personal and societal level.

Contributions from people living with dementia and their carers will help to make the film as authentic as possible.

Focus Groups and Interviews

We will be running a series of online focus groups and interviews with people with dementia, and those who support those with the condition. During these sessions, participants will be asked to share their experiences of living with dementia and/or supporting those with the condition. These stories will be drawn upon as inspiration by our two filmmakers to create a fictional film script.

While the script may draw on themes and experiences explored in the focus group sessions and interviews, we will change all names, places and anything personally identifiable in the final story.

These insights will also help shape the research direction of the research team, who are currently investigating the changes in self-awareness during dementia.

Co-creation of the Script

We want to make sure that the final film is as true a representation as possible of living with dementia. Therefore, we want to talk to those with lived experiences, to capture their voices and incorporate their expertise into the script.

Our approach will be to work with all participants collaboratively to co-create the script. This means we will check in with everyone taking part at a number of points in the writing process for their thoughts and inputs.

Documentary

We want to document the research process behind this project in the form of a documentary, which would be released in support of the feature film. This documentary will provide an insight into our collaborative approach to co-developing the film with lived experts (focus group participants), our scientific experts, charity partners and the UCL engagement team.

We will therefore be asking for volunteers from people who took part in the focus groups and interviews to share their experiences of taking part in the project. They will reflect on the process of sharing their experiences within the focus groups, to share with us whether they felt the project was helpful and if taking part in discussion groups may help people who have had similar experiences. This is entirely optional, and does not affect participants’ eligibility to take part in the main project.